Here I will be learning and reviewing about how technical elements such as camera, mise-en-scene, sound and edit can affect audience interpretation based on their connotations.
Literally means 'putting in place/stage' and refers to intentional composition and design of visual elements within a frame or a scene, such as the way actors and props are chosen and arranged, to potray meaning and mood.
Consider the; Mood of the scene; Atmosphere (empty, somber, exciting, etc.) should be reflected in the setting through mise-en-scene for audience to pick up and feel the intended emotion. Character; set design externalises the internal state of the character to give audience a look into the character's inner state, such as their mental or psychological state.
Theme; Communicate the deeper meaning or subtext of a narrative.
Hair, costume, makeup, clothing, build, body language, acting/performance, etc
Should be reflecting their personality, ideology, values
Should hint at how audience should perceive a character/dominant reading of a character
Props
Accessories, weapons, gadgets, items, etc
Represents character's personality
Can be used to aid in building the narrative world to make the world seem believable and real to audience
Set Design
Locaiton, dressing, space, time of day, light, environment, weather, etc.
Informs time, place, and story while also communicates intentions, obstacles, themes, narratives and characters
Church - audience may expect a professional, quiet, respectful scene
Mcdonalds - audience may expect a casual conversation taking place
Colour
Colour psychology states that colour evokes certain emotions in audiences because of their connotations to certain feelings. Here is a colour psychology wheel I found on the internet;
Notes from video above;
Red - connotes danger, threat, scenes with emotional intensity, passion, love
Orange - destructive colour like fire, high energy
Yellow/Gold - opulent and grandiose
Green - natural, symbols for life and death
Blue - somber, guilt, sin
Other elements include;
Lighting, helps in determining mood of a scene, provide insight to character, or guide viewers eyes. Here are some common terms from this video;
High-key lighting - low contrast ratio where background and subject lit evenly, often used for happier and brighter scenes
Low-key lighting - high contrast ratio where difference with light and shadow is large, often used for darker, dramatic scenes
Chiaroscuro - high contrastt ratio, enhance mysterious and dangerous qualities of a scene
Hard light - Directional light that creates stark shadows, used for dramatic scenes
Soft light - Diffused light and creates less shadows, used for happier and romantic scenes
Dumb/broad side - lighting the side of the subject closer to the camera
Smart/short side - lighting the side of the subject thats farther from the camera
Blocking and Staging, refers to how characters move through a scene and the camera's position which helps to draw the audience's attention to what's most important in a scene while making a scene interesting.
Could also be used to display power dynamics
(Rack) Focus, adjusting the camera's focal plane to reveal information or signal a change in scene.
Controlling the eyes of the viewers with a more focused direction of scene.
Adds depth to a scene while clearly helping develop links between two subjects.
------- Sound ------
I have only noted sounds that may relate to a music video rather than all sounds mentioned in the video.
Diegetic
Sound originating from inside the world
Immerse audience into the scene/world, thus adds a sense of realism
Non-diegetic
Sound originating outside of scene, characters could not hear
Adds ambience, sets tone of the scene or adds extra information for the audience
Dialogue, what the characters say
Tells audience about character and their behaviour or reveals information/context
Score or Soundtrack
Ambient, naturally occuring sound from location to add realism
Silence, gaps in sound to draw audience attention or add tension
Volume, affects perception of scene, such as higher volume can add drama and excitement.
Parallel Editing (Cross-Cutting) : cut between two different scenes that are happening at the same time in different places
Cutaways and Inserts : takes viewers away from the main action to give extra context and information. May create more tension and foreshadowing.
Jump Cut : cut that pushes forward in time thats done within the same frame
Match Cut : cut between twoo scenes with similar compositions to give context and continuity and pushes it in a certain direction without disorienting the viewer.
Crossfade (Dissolve) : signify a passage of time or if there are overlapping “layers", shows that multiple stories are happening at once
Cut to the Beat (Rhythmic) : cuts are made to the beat for a more energetic look
SplitScreen : similar to parallel editing, but overlap different shots into one panel
J or L Cut : L cut is when audio from clip A continues when clip B comes in. The J cut is the opposite.
Theories
Here is my teacher's slideshow detailing all the theories we've learnt in class
Reflection : This entire blog post was the most dreadful task out of all my other preparations. Despite understanding how important it is to recap our understanding on technical elements and theories, I believe this task felt utterly endless to me because I had to look back into my old notes and type each note down. Doing extra research did help expand my ideas on the uses of technical elements, which I may take advantage of to find new creative solutions to our current problem of how we can potray the passage of time in various ways.
Problems : No major problem other than the time consumed to make the entire blog
Solution : I gave myself a set deadline and multiple breaks to help motivate me to get it done as soon as possible while also keeping my ideas fresh by occassionally taking time away from the task
Here we will look indepth of our song choice 'Catch Me In The Air' by Rina Sawayama (2022) which was done by my group and I together
Catch me in the air by Rina Sawayama does not currently have an official music video but does have a official visualiser. A visualiser differs from a music video by being less focused on storytelling and instead simply being an abstract representations of music that enhances the experience through dynamic visuals.
1. Song Background; Genius.com, a lyrical database and digital media company, has provided a small description of the song “ 'Catch Me In The Air' is the second single from Rina Sawayama’s Hold the Girl album. The song details Sawayama’s relationship with her single mother, and how they have supported each other through difficult times."
Rina also introduced the song on her Dynasty Tour with "I wrote a very special song and it's about my relationship with my mom who's a single mom. [...] I just wanted to write the fact that we have caught each other when we're falling, and so this song is called 'Catch Me in the Air'." (information found on a website called the Rina Sawayama Wiki)
We can conclude that this song is about the relationship between a single mother and her child as each other’s support system and how their relationship has evolved now that they’re both on their own.
2. Why we choose it
The song was suggested by a friend who's a fan of the artist. We liked the song as it had consisted of a narrative that we can easily follow and develop upon. The song is also really heartwarming which will allow us to more easily invoke an emotional response from our audience, making it easier for us to keep our audience engaged as they will have a stronger attachment to our music video. In addition to that, since the artist does not have an official music video, we have more freedom to experiment and create a narrative based on the meanings we capture from the lyric. These reasons are why this song in particular stuck out to us among all our other options.
3. How your music video will be different
Genius contributors mentioned the first verse of the song is written in the perspective of Rina's mother but we plan to subvert this idea by exclusively sticking to the artists' point of view. This way, it will put the audience in the artist's point of view and would create a stronger emotional reaction more effectively.
Additionally, we choose to subvert from Rina Sawayama's usual style. In the music video she is seen wearing more modern chic clothes, which is a convention more strongly associated with pop artists, whereas we choose simpler rural-like clothing which is more frequent in indie pop artists. This is because our star's persona conveys her more as a simpler girl, keen on keeping close to her roots. Furthermore, in comparison to how her video consists mostly of visual performances taking into account that it is an official visualizer instead of a music video, instead of following that, we'll be creating a storyline.
Reflection: I had wished I'd done this task much earlier as I felt like it would've aided in the planning the narrative when I had fully understood the lyrics and meanings behind all the lines. Writing down our plan on how to subvert from conventions was also a great addition to the task as we could refer back to it before the production phase to ensure our music video will stand out amongst others.
Problems: As ridiculous as it was, I was the only one from my group that was present during the distribution of this task by my teacher. I was worried because of this, I would have to take over a lot of the tasks while my teammates were occupied with other matters.
Solutions: I had done a part of the tasks that were given to me on the day and left other parts empty. I informed my group on said tasks and asked them to complete it on their own time, whenever available. I think this was great since we were all able to take part in this song research while also adding our own opinions could broaden our imaginations, especially with how our music video will stand out.
This was helpful for me as it gave me a general look into how a screen test work
We were able to get around 20 and more people to do our screentest, including myself. I felt as this was beneficial as I learnt to get a better understanding of what I was looking for in my own artist.
It was time efficient to have us in a line as it took approximately 10 minutes of class time in total
Our teacher encouraged all of us to sing despite not being on screen which could have helped in easing some people's nerves being infront of a camera
Disadvantages ;
Going through all 20 plus students meant some may have not gotten as much screentime as others thus I couldn't determine how well some students performed
To some students who didn't know the song and the lyrics, it was obvious that they wouldnt be able perform as well as others who did. This may have been a factor to some people looking uncomfortable infront of the camera.
Reflection: It was overall quite a fun and lighthearted activity to do in class and became a nice break from the project work we've been doing however, I felt as though none of the people in this screen test really fit the image of the artist for my group. Furthermore, me and my team has already had people in mind prior to this screen test so we will be having a screen test for them instead.
Problem: Finding the person that fulfills all of our requirement was quite difficult as it was quite specific (such as having childhood footage related to performance, to be similar looking to our child actress, being comfortable being infront and singing to the camera.) thus it took a lot to find the right person that we all agreed on. Not only that, we weren't able to get her screen test on time to submit this project for school report grading due to our schedule with the actress not aligning.
Solution: We had asked her to record the screen test during a break period in school to get it done as quickly as possible.
Here are the locations our team considered as well as their risks, written by Cheryl. Cheryl chose to embed the document in order to not ruin the formatting of the table and make the content unclear.
Here is a link to the document in case the embedded link do not work:
Reflection : As this task was given to Cheryl, I did not have much hand in writing out the location scout and risk assessment. I offered my help in other ways though. I suggested places we could use on certain scenes to Cheryl, such as a friend's house for a childhood home as we were both familiar with the place and agreed it had the exact cozy style we were looking for or utilising our schools stage in the Assembly Hall as a setting, and assisted in brainstorming of the advantages and disadvantages of a scene. Despite this, all credit goes to Cheryl who gave a more thorough evaluation and assessment of each location.
This is a lyric sheet that my group used to discuss our vision for each verse.
For this task, we started with a paper of the lyrics provided by our teacher where we discussed the general idea/narrative we wanted. Here are some of our notes from when we did this during classtime.
However, we had a limit of 10-20minutes to discuss this during our classtime thus we decided to continue this at home through canva. I had been the one to write down all our ideas, give them some more detailed visuals and transferred them to canva whiteboard. This way we could all share ideas and comment on each other's idea.
Although there might be slight changes and features (videos, clear images, comments and their reply) that can only be seen in the embedded link, I also included our whiteboard in the form of images.
Aurel had commented some great questions and ideas to add on the whiteboard, however most our discussions were done within our groupchat on Whatsapp. I felt as though we were able to expand a little bit more on our idea. Not only will it make our music video stand out, but also ensure our vision is aligning as a group.
Because of this discussion, we were more inclined to ask our teacher for feedback on the current storyline. He informed us on his concern over how well we would be able to communicate the different flashbacks/timestamps that were happening since we did not have access to actors of different ages, which prompted him to suggest a different approach of one flashback and a continous display of the artist's journey through her career from the mother's camera perspective. We, as a group, all agreed to this new narrative as it felt as though our message could be delivered more clearly and readjusted our previous planning to fit towards it.
Reflection: This task was a good way of agreeing and compromising on all our ideas into one. Similarly to the moodboard, we were able to discuss our ideas and combine them to one with this task which ended up aiding in the storyboard process since I had a clear vision on each verse. Other than that, I thought doing this task was very helpful in allowing my group to connect more as we begun developing ideas together.
Problems: Tweaking our narrative in such short notice means we need to have it done so we can move on to the production phase. We aim to complete this before December
Solution: I'll be approaching my group to discuss the change once more and splitting the task between all of us. Ideally we get the new lyric sheet done before our semester break to be able to approach our teacher once more and get his approval.
Here is the process of making the storyboard for my group.
A storyboard, defined by Teachfloor, is said to be "a visual representation of a story, often in the form of illustrations or images, arranged in a specific order to show the sequence of events in a film, video, etc."
I had taken the time to learn a little more on storyboards and what is expected through this blog by the BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z2vrhv4/revision/2 - however my teacher had ended up providing us templates to aid in our storyboard process. It included 2 templates, one wth 4 large boxes for detailed and another with 8 smaller boxes. Our teacher had suggested us to draw out the scenes from a singular location rather than planning the cuts between a performance to a b-roll, with the intention of reducing confusion in the narrative. Because of this, most shots did not have a defined duration, as it can vary depending on where it will be placed in the editing phase.
In these first few pages, I had used 2 pages of big boxes to draw out my ideas in detail, however, I will be switching to the pages with smaller boxes moving on to be more time-efficient. Since I would focus less on detail, I will be able to spend more time in ensuring the ideas all throughout the video will be comprehensable (due to the limited space to write descriptions) to both my team members and my teacher. This is the continuation of the storyboard.
There are still some scenes missing, which include the scene from the bridge as my team and I had not been able to have the time to properly discuss our next plan of action and realign our vision. Thus there will be more to come. However, for the sake of the due date, this will be all to submit at the current moment.
Reflection : This is my first time making a storyboard for a video and I found it so incredibly fun to work on. I enjoyed taking part in what will be the first few steps to get to the production phase. Although hearing our teacher suggest a different approach to our narrative due to its confusing timeline was soul-crushing initially, I think I was able to make a storyboard that can easily be understood even without the music because of the change. I believe this storyboard will be useful in the future to reference during our production so we don't stray too far off our original plan.
Problems : The significant shift in plans regarding the narrative that caused us to alter our proposed visuals was the largest issue. We had to delay doing our tasks to quickly recap our teacher's comments and discuss what direction to go from there. This meant spending more time to reorganise our scenes, find ideas and inspirations from other music videos, suggest filler visuals, etc. The only other problem was the lack of paper provided by my teachers since my storyboard took 4 pages plus, yet I was only given 2.
Solution : The biggest helped my group received would definitely be our teacher who sat and suggested ideas for specific scenes, which I believed became a foundation to how I had built our storyboard around. Regarding the amount of paper needed, I simply photocopied more copies of the templates.
Here is the moodboard my group had made to aid in aligning our visions with one another. We had made 2 pages of the moodboard as there will be 2 very different settings that we plan to have. The first page is set in a rural area while the second is in a urban area (cityscapes, city, metropolitan areas, etc)
Reflection : This task was quite easy and required very few minutes to complete because all it took was to look through images that fit with our ideas and place them in our moodboad. The task overall is a very good way to get an understanding of my teammates ideas and vision on the music video. This meant that we were able to find a middle ground where all our visions combined together and so we can move on to the production phase with a lack of miscommunication.
Problems : There has been changes to our narrative so our moodboard will need to reflect this. Luckily with our initial 2 pages for both rural and urban areas, we already have a set idea. Expanding this into each scene could be more beneficial however.
Solution : Adding more on this is on my to-do list for this week.
Here is the statement of intent for component 3, music video project
Reflection : My team and I surprisingly got majority of the statement of intent done within a day as we prepared for it prior to the class starting. We were able to work up a small plan earlier to get the general idea of what to add in our statement of intent. I think this really helped as it reduced the time needed to go back and forth on discussion. Instead, we were able to give the main idea for each section and would bounce off of each when it came to details. For example, we had established that we were going to target the southeast asian, young adult women demographic so during the class time, we simply added onto it by crafting ways in which we will appeal to them.
Problems : We had plans to split the task to do the statement of intent equally, however, Cheryl was absent that day because she wasn't feeling well. Therefore, me and Aurel took on more work during the class time.
Solution : We were able to communicate to Cheryl through chats and thus was still able to organise ourselves into different sections to work on writing down the main ideas. Because we had finished majority of the points during school hours, it took less time at home for me to polish up our statement of intent by turning our points that were written in bulletpoint form to cleaner paragraphs.
Here is the discussion me and my team had to pick our song.
Before we can even begin to plan, we had to pick a song for our project. Since the very beginning, it was clear we all wanted to do a pop song and agreed to avoid romantic narratives as we didn't feel too comfortable with the idea of it. Aurel had been the first to suggest her list in our Whatsapp groupchat which included of;
I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME - Leave Me Alone
Pavement - "Harness Your Hopes"
Will Wood - Tomcat Disposables
girl in red - rue
We shared our thoughts on this in regards to the visuals that would be paired with the audio. In the meantime, Cheryl and I also suggested some songs.
By discussing this back and forth, we were able to eliminate most songs, leaving it to 4 options. Here I will detail each option and their reasoning for their consideration, rejection and approval from the team:
Tulus - Tujuh Belas [REJECTED]
An Indonesian song popular amongst teen (especially highschool seniors) thus would be directly targeting our ideal target audience
Song related to highschool life, would be very easy to film as we have access to a school setting. However, our teacher had told us we'd be filming during our break thus we might not have access to the school building during that time.
girl in red - rue [REJECTED]
A song we all enjoyed
We weren't too sure on how we would subvert from the already-existing music video
Pavement - "Harness Your Hopes" [REJECTED]
A song we all enjoyed
We weren't sure of what narrative to take and did not want to take the risk of a vague storyline that may confuse audiences
Rina Sawayama - Catch me in the air [APPROVED]
A song we all enjoyed
Clear idea of the narrative in mind that we all agreed to
We believe the song is within our capabilities (in terms of ability and budget)
In class today, we studied the theory of stardom by Richard Dyer. Here is my summarised understanding of the theory.
Dyer says that celebrities are constructed by companies to target a demographic. By representing themselves as 'real people' , they are able to attract audience and sell products such as films or music.
REEL persona : curated version of a star, designed to fit expectations of audiences (shown through performances, music video, social media)
REAL persona : authentic personality of the individual (shown through interviews, documentaries, behind-the-scenes footage)
Celebrities are appealing to audience for 5 reasons:
Love : fascination with the love lives of stars, or because we feel romantic affiliation with them
Ordinariness : fascination with them doing routine things, living normal lives
Success : fascination with the idea of overnight success, failure before success that appeals to our sense of fair play
Consumption : fascination with huge material wealth brought by media success
Downfall : fascination with the exploitation of their misery
Here are my classroom notes about a celebrity me and my team had chosen (Beabadoobee) to analyse their reel and real personalities according to the theory.
This is my research on music genre and the conventions of their music videos
Genre (in terms of music) is easily explained as the type of music. It helps us categorise different musics to different "kinds" based on similar themes. According to Steve Neale's theory on genre, genres are instances of generic codes and conventions being repeated in media products (music and music videos) and that genres are constantly evolving with each new addition.
Each genre of music videos have different common themes which can be understood by looking into the type of music videos.
Style of All Music Video:
1. Narrative
Narrative music videos tells a story (either in a linear or fragmented manner)
Narrative often correlates to the lyrics of the song
Actors act according to the music
Visuals align with lyrics/music to help viewer understand the lyrics clearly
2. Conceptual/Concept-based
Based on a specific concept of theme (could be magic, supernatural, historial, religious, scientific, etc)
The videos often attempt to intrigue a specific target audience. The use of unusual content also attracts audiences
These are not easily understood and are more difficult to produce
3. Performative
May include shot of the artist's performance (could be live or in a studio)
Sometimes artist appears to perform (band or lipsyncing) in unusual settings - empty buildings, fields, etc
May include closeups of the artist, particular visual style (costume, prop, etc.) that follows with the artist's aesthetic
Here is my research into the genre me and my team had picked - Indie Pop
The indie-pop genre can be defined by its charactertics which include a small audience due to its niche, combines guitar pop with DIY ethics, melodic, less abrasive and angst-free compared to Indie-rock. My team and I concluded these conventions in a list:
More towards the narrative style, sometimes implementing performances (often lip-syncing or playing instruments)
Camera angles vary from establishing, long, medium shots and close-up. There are lots of focus on the surroundings with these shots
Camera tends to stay at the eye-level to maintain sense of realism while high and low angles aren't as common
Tracking, static/stills and hand-held movements are common
Sometimes features the use diegetic sounds to add to the realism (such as parallel sounds that match the mood, tone, atmosphere of a scene)
Often subverts from cut-to-sound editing by having the video be out of time with rhythm of sound/doesn't fit the pace of the music
Editing attempts to keep scenes organic-looking but professional with clean cuts and shaky shots so balance of the look of amateur and expert shots.
Sun is the main lighting often used, while artificial lighting is used indoors
Costumes reflects the setting of the narrative (time period/era, season and weather, age range, etc.) while often being subtle to allow more focus on the actor and surroundings
Produced by: Nicolas Muñoz (the artist himself), Erik Thorsheim & Esteban Muñoz
Distributed by: Self-uploaded to Youtube
Genre / Sub genre:
Indie, pop
What conventions does it conform to?
This music video conformed to the pop genre by showing a mix of performance (lipsyncing and playing piano) than the narrative (love story). The narrative is simple and a digestible storyline that did not draw in too much attention. The mise-en-scene of the music video also had conformed with high key lighting and a colour grade in the post-production to give the video a brighter and saturated look to follow the joyous atmosphere of the song.
What conventions does it subvert?
This music video did subvert from the pop genre by leaning into the indie genre that often has contradicting conventions. However, the artist did a great job of finding a balance by having a low budget aesthetic which included a simple setting (outside setting), casual clothing/costumes, minimalistic style (few props used) as well as simple camera angles and movements like static shots, handheld camera motion, and zooms. Furthermore, the mundane acting makes the scene seem authentic that fits the indie genre. The usage of slow paced editing also subverts from the typical fast-paced editing of upbeat, pop videos.
What representations are there? (people/places/events)
The music video represented young (teenager to young adult) love to be innocent, silly, gentle and sweet. The representations of men and women in a relationship could also be suggested as the man is seen as the romantic protector while the woman is depicted as pure. Additionally, the landscape/location was also represented to be quiet and peaceful to enforce the portrayal of tenderness in the relationship
What technical elements are used to give meaning to the representations?
The mix of technical elements forms the representation found in the music video. Camera angles such as closeups show intimacy and closeness of the couple in while long shots display their action and how connected they are by always facing each other, hugging or being overall affectionate with one another. Mise-en-scene supported this by always showing the couple in bright, warm, natural lighting which implies a genuine and pleasant relationship. The sunny and spring weather also can be seen as a symbol of the blossoming of a relationship with the addition of the lush nature background and the roses placed on the piano have direct associations with love and romance to further build on this sense of passionate love between the couple.
2. Sunny Day - Beabadoobee (2023)
Produced by: Ground Work
Distributed by: Vevo
Genre / Sub genre:
Indie pop, bedroom pop
What conventions does it conform to?
This music video had a mix of performance and narrative storytelling that was typical of indie pop videos. With the unusual concept and weird visual elements, vintage/cottagecore aesthetic as well as bright colours, it heavily conforms to the indie genre that utilises unconventional ideas to attract niche audiences. Costume and clothing of the artist were fairly casual that further proves to be a feature of indie music videos. There were, however, elements that conformed to the pop genre such as closeup of artist performing and possibly a high budget set (as it included moving elements).
What conventions does it subvert?
The DIY and authentic look of the music video subverted from the standard high-budget produced visuals of the pop genre in which they normally use CGI on the details of the settings, however the artist took to having physical/man-made items (such as mushrooms and the dancing frog) instead. The song and music also aligns more with upbeat, optimistic tone of pop compared to indie. Not only that, the music video included choreography that's more of a feature of pop music videos than indie
What representations are there? (people/places/events)
Representation of women shown in the video is quite complex as it conformed to the potrayal of women to have some quality of purity, beauty and grace however also diverting the stereotype of women being overly sensitive and repelling things often seen as "gross" such as snails. This complexity could mean how the two statements can coexist with one another
What technical elements are used to give meaning to the representations?
For the former point on conforming to a stereotype, the artist was also depicted with ethereal qualities using post-production editing that gives her a radiant light and glow on her skin or the use of backlight to give her a shine, making her seem angelic ontop of her gentle demeanor implied by her soft smile, makeup and smooth skin. Props like butterflies and flowers can also suggest a fragility thats common in the representation of women in media. The artist can also be shown in poses that show vulnerability such as laying down on her stomach or side.
For the latter point on subverting from the stereotype, the female artist is potrayed to not be disgusted by insects and or mollusks by being unbothered by the presence of them as well as growing mushroom (which may imply mold). A closeup is used in the shot of the artist holding an insect with the intentional blocking to put focus on the insect by using a blur. Despite the blur, audiences are still able to tell the artist's expression of captivation or fascination by her eyes following the insect and her smile shown through the blur. A long shot was also used to show the artist walking past the mushrooms that confirms her indifference towards things that are typically disturbing.
GENERAL RESEARCH
1. ETA - NewJeans (2023)
Genre/Sub-Genre?
Pop, K-pop
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
Mostly teenagers and young adults (11-23 years old) using visually engaging content such as bright colours, high/upbeat energy, summer party aesthetic (contributed by bold costumes, props and pool setting) with the potrayal of dramatic relationships in their narrative that makes their music video intriguing to younger audiences.
What would you like to use in your music video from this?
A lot of the elements that I liked from the (such as changing film sets, chaotic visual elements like confetti detail and fashion) will not be replicable as it requires a high budget however I find the use of a dramatic narrative interesting to explore in a music video as it invites the audience to follow along the story by listening to the full song.
What would you like to avoid in your music video from this?
I mostly enjoyed a lot of the elements of this music video, however would need to adjust them to my capabilities since my team and I would not have the budget nor time to create an elaborate and detailed video for our project thats in a similar style to this music video.
2. Juna - Clairo (2024)
Genre/Sub-Genre?
Indie Pop, Bedroom pop
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
Older teenagers to adult audience (15-28) as the video has an interesting constrast and juxtaposition theme of the calm, stillness and delicacy and chaos, movement and strength of the artist staying still while performing and the chaos happening infront shown through multiple camera angles and movements such as closeups, pans, long shots, tilts and much more. The violence shown may be more suitable for more mature audiences.
What would you like to use in your music video from this?
I like the video's usage of a slowed down footages by filming at a higher frame per second. It gives the music video a much more smoother finish as well as contrasting well with the quick, powerful movements of boxing.
What would you like to avoid in your music video from this?
I may avoid the violent theme as it would not be suitable for the audience I intend to target despite that how I enjoyed the humourous aspect of it, especially with the contrast to the singer being depicted as sweet, still yet silly.
3. Mama's Boy - Dominic Fike (2023)
Genre/Sub-Genre?
Indie Pop, Alternative Pop Rock
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
Male teenager to adults (15-28 years old) due to the slight horror aspect to the video and how majority of the video was focused on the male artist, thus the lack of female representatives would make it harder for female audiences to relate to the video. The blue colourgrading that turned most values in the video to blue could also have been used to target a male audience since blue is stereotypically a universal colour for boys in addition to setting the mood of the music video.
What would you like to use in your music video from this?
I enjoyed the use of mise-en-scene and colurs to depict a feeling of being absent, lost and glum which intensified the mood and atmosphere of the whole video. I also found the use of long scenes done in a single shot really interesting as it would draw out the scene and made it suspensful therefore, engaging for audiences.
What would you like to avoid in your music video from this?
There was a huge focus on the narrative of the story incomparison to the perfomance of the artist which, although made for an interesting story, I would like to avoid since there is a requirement to have a performance in my project.
4. Room For You - Grentperez (2023)
Genre/Sub-Genre?
Indie Pop, Bedroom pop
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
This music video most likely targets teenagers (both male and female) of ages 15 and up with psychographics that align with the romantic and caring characteristics.
What would you like to use in your music video from this?
I enjoyed the low budget feel of this video with the amateur camera techniques and movements like quick zooms, harsh tracking, and unpolished filming. The mundane activities of the two artists, in casual outfits, done in suburb locations used as b-roll also added to the authenticity.
What would you like to avoid in your music video from this?
I quite enjoyed most of the elements featured in this music video and don't have much criticism other than the lack of performance by the artist.
Children to young adults (11-26 years old) as the animation is drawn in bright, neon, colours with a style of animation that is reminiscent of anime which all may appeal to younger audiences than older audiences.
What would you like to use in your music video from this?
I did enjoy the use of animation in the video as it stood out from music videos featuring the artist in real life, however I am not able to replicate it for my own project due to the lack of budget. Other than that, I did not like most elements and themes of the music video
What would you like to avoid in your music video from this?
I would definitely avoid the neon colours simply because I cannot envision it to fit my ideal target audience of older teenage to young adult audience as well as my personal opinion that I am not a huge fan of the style and feel as though it would be straining to the eye if not done carefully and intentionally.
6. Then It All Goes Away - Dayglow (2022)
Genre/Sub-Genre?
Indie Pop
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
Teenagers to young adults (12-28 years old) with the use of appealingly, loud visuals using the bright blue sky and bold costume colours such as the yellow and innovative angles like fisheye angle and low angle, almost the opposite to an aerial shot, that is an uncommon and fun angle which would peak the interest of younger, more tech-savy audience. The cheery atmosphere with multiple actors doing random things in the same angle also makes for an engaging watch as there are many things happening, without the feeling of it being overcrowded and chaotic.
What would you like to use in your music video from this?
The use of colours and angle was definitely the most interesting part of the music video. It allowed the artist to look directly and perform to the camera without feeling awkward by pairing the shot with dancing and moving. This does improve the engagement of the video ontop of the intense colours displayed. It also matched well with the lively and optimistic atmosphere of the song.
What would you like to avoid in your music video from this?
There is not much features of the music video where I'd avoid it since I like all visual elements as they all match well with one another
Reflection: As much as I dislike doing repetitive tasks, I quite enjoyed this particular one. I found it entertaining to watch music videos from different artist as I got to experience a wide range of artistic vision that (most of the time) were created by the artists themselves rather than big companies. Alongside the bonus of listening to some of my favourite songs, this entire task was insightful from learning how certain themes, representations and messages are built through technical elements. This would definitely be helpful to act as advice on what my team should consider during our production to ensure our message can be deconstructed as intended
Problems: The biggest issue with this task was how time-consuming it was to analyse a music video. It required long pauses to really take in the scene and to slowly dissect the representations shown and how they subvert or conform to audiences expectations.
Solution: There was no solution to this, only a preventative measure to ensure this would task would not be due late when needed. By keeping a reminder on my phone to remind me every few days to add more research, it made sure that the task was completed whenever my teacher required it to be graded.
Here is a video that was suggested by my teacher on the fundamentals to making a music video
Reflection : This video was the first step as a class from planning to starting the pre-production phase. The tips and tricks given were helpful and I believe will be considered as we move along with the process, especially with the trick to record atleast one performance video to fill up any empty spaces during the post-production phase.
This is my research on the music video industry by looking into 2 production companies
1. Sabrina Carpenter - Taste
Production Company: Freenjoy Small description: "Internationally renowned creative direction and production company founded by Grammy award winning producer Nathan Scherrer." - freenjoy Linkedin Genre: Pop Other content they produce: • Ariana grande - positions • Taylor Swift - ME!
• Travis Scott - I Know
• Megan thee Stallion & Dua lipa - sweetest pie
Typical audience: • Younger audiences such as teenagers to young adults (18-35) • Both male and female audiences • English speaking audience/US audience as all artists they work with are US-based
Psychographics:
• Mature audiences (suggestive or gorey content oftten shown)
• Heavily engaged in pop culture
• Values artistry and narratives in these music video
• Audience likely to be socially conscious and open to discussions of political and social issues
• Possibly a target to creative audiences by being incredibly visually innovative
Company size and age: • 2-10 employees • founded in 2014
Most successful product: • Flowers by Miley Cyrus (2023) released on Youtube with approximately 883 million views as of writing (Oct 2024)
Small description: "PRETTYBIRD is a hybrid production company that creates cutting-edge work that transcends boundaries and lives at the crossroads of branded entertainment, music, sports, technology, film, and television." - prettybird.co website
Genre: Pop Other content they produce: • The Rolling Stones - Mess It Up (by the same director) • Pharrel Williams - Entrepreneur (by the same director) • Lil Nas X - Rodeo (directed by Bradley and Pablo) • Harry Styles - Late Night Talking (directed by Bradley and Pablo)
Typical audience: • Adults (20-45) • Both male and female audiences and generally has a wide appeal • English speaking audience/US audience as all artists they work with are US-based Psychographics: • Mature audiences (suggestive or gorey content sometimes shown)
• Prettybird has worked on many music videos that highlight inclusion and diversity. Additionally working on songs that explores social and political themes so audiences are likely to be socially aware and open-minded
• Engaged in trends of music, fashion and pop culture
• Values storytelling and visual experimentation
• Possibly a target to creative audiences by being incredibly visually innovative
Company size and age: • 51-200 employees • Founded in 2008
Most successful product: • Old Town Road released on Youtube with approximately 1.3 billion views as of writing (Oct 2024)
Reflection ; This was a very interesting task to do since I have never done a deep dive into industries and how they work. At first, I admit I wasn't too sure on why my teacher assigned us to look into music video industries but I noticed that this task had exposed me to different styles as well as how they align to their core values and appeal to target audiences. Knowing the various trademarks from different industries will help me in my own music video production as I can draw inspiration from the examples provided above and innovate a style that targets my groups target audience. For example, younger audience, based on my observation, enjoy music videos that have a cinematic look and distinct style (with bright colours, trendy fashion, interesting themes, etc.) to them.
This is my preliminary research of music videos along with their conventions and representations of social groups/issues
Reflection ; This research was a small introduction to the music video conventions. This task was originally done in class as a classwork by my teacher but, I found myself lost in what to answer at times and would leave some spaces empty. I revisited this task when I came home to be able to complete it at my own pace which definitely helped me have a better and more indepth analysis. I was able to pause on certain scenes, uncover the meaning, and note what to take inspiration from. After completion, I realised how necessary this task was to my project as it helped me to narrow down what genre I wanted to pick.
This is my weekly progress for my music video project that will details what I have done throughout the week. This report will aid in reflecting on my progress and acts as a plan for the following weeks.
Week
Start Date
Task
Blogpost Title
Content
Deadline
W1
30 September
Pre Production
Research
1
Brief
2
Team
3
Weekly Progress
4
Preliminary Research
Broad genre research
W3
W2
7 October
Research
5
Research: Industry
Who makes music videos?
W3
W3
14 October
Research
6
Research: Genre
Codes and Conventions of your genre
W4
W4
21 October
Plan
7
Statement of Intent
Your initial proposal
W5
8
Theory of Stardom: Richard Dyer
A summary of the class, plus your example
W7
W5
28 October
Plan
9
Moodboard
Your visual style
W7
10
Lyric Sheet
Breakdown your song into scenes
W7
11
Storyboard
Shot by shot plan
W7
W6
4 November
Plan
12
Song Research
Background of your song
W7
13
Screen Test
star auditions
W7
14
Classwork
How to: Camera, MeS, Sound, Edit
W7
W7
11 November
Plan
15
Location scout & Risk Assessment
W7
16
Filming Schedule
Film over the break?
W7
W7
BREAK
Because I prefer writing my weekly recap as a complete paragraph, it is a bit difficult to identify the problems that had occured. Thus, I've decided my method would be to highlighted the problems in red and provided the possible solutions below it.
FIRST PHASE - RESEARCH AND PLANNING
Week 1;
Recap:
In this first week of the project, my teacher had gone through the brief. Truthfully, I became extremely nervous hearing that we had to make our own music video as it seemed there were a lot of tasks to complete. However, I did try to be excited it for this project as it will be a new experience for me. We began by discussing on the team and how my classmates and I will be grouped which proved to be a stressful situation as it was difficult to please everyone's ideal grouping. After this, we moved towards doing a small preliminary reasearch on different genres of music videos. I found this task to be slightly confusing as I feel as though music videos aren't as prominent and popularly watched in todays era so I felt as though I wasn't too familiar on the conventions of a music video of more recent times.
Possible Solutions:
Since I am currently not too familiar with the conventions of music videos, I will have to face outside my comfort zone to the world of cinematography and conduct extra research on conventions that appear frequently in music videos.
To do List :
Finalising my grouping is the top priority. This will then be followed by beginning my research on conventions as the next step in my plan.
Week 2;
Recap: This week my team was finalised with the help of our teacher. I'm quite pleased with my grouping as they are all friends I can trust. With the grouping fixed, we choose the genre Indie Pop as we all had initially agreed to do pop however after I expressed my concern on the high budget that the genre often requires, we adjusted it to our capabilities by leaning into the Indie genre (that often excuses the low budget/equipment in the filmset). Moving on, we started researching into mutliple aspects of music videos such as the industry, genre research, and conventions of our genre. This was all such hefty yet essential tasks to be done so I did my best to ensure my research indepth and thorough.
Possible Solutions:
This uneventful week meant for a lack of problems to be solved, thankfully.
To do List :
I aim to simply complete my research by the end of next week.
Week 3;
Recap: This week was pretty dull as we simply continued our research however, our teacher gave us a warning that we will be starting our planning by next week so it is a must to complete my reasearch by this week. The deadline was a bit scary since I had other tasks from extracurriculars. This week, I looked further into music videos of my genre to better understand the style that they share/have in common. Although I tend to find research boring, I quite enjoyed this task as it mostly meant listening to the type of music I liked which served as my motivation. My team and I also took on to discussing what music we wanted to do by suggesting the songs we enjoyed, picturing the visuals of the music video and then conducting a process of elimination to narrow our choices down.
Possible Solutions:
Because of how time-management is crucial at this time, I've begun setting up reminders on my device to make sure I don't let this task slip away from my mind that easily and am able to keep myself accountable.
To do List :
This week, it is a priority for my research to be complete as it will be graded by my teacher. As well as building a foundation of my team and I's music video by finalising our song choice and having the basic ideas on what will our music video look like.
Week 4;
Recap: On this week, me and my team started and completed our statement of intent which ended up being finished faster than I expected. Since everything went smoothly and we had already went through the questions together, we were able to mostly complete it within a single day and only had to polish it at home. Other than that, we began learning about the theory of stardom which helped us in understanding how to create our star persona within our statement of intent.
Possible Solutions:
This week I encountered no big, notable issues that would require any solutions. However, I simply need to get most of my blogposts finished/completed as the deadline is nearing, so I will be more proactive in this aspect by this week.
To do List : Since we are getting started in the storyboarding next week, I plan to listen to the song we choose (catch me in the air by rina sawayama) and jot down ideas for the visuals of the song.
Week 5;
Recap: This week we began the storyboarding process of the project by starting from the lyric sheet. This task was a bit difficult since me and my teammates had not prepared/had a fixed narrative to follow so we spent most of our time building on ideas, continously suggesting our ideas until we settled to one complete idea. After that we created our moodboard to make sure our visions aligned for our project then drew out a small detailed section our storyboard before moving on to discussion about next week. The class had ended faster than I expected so my team and I ran out of time to have an indepth understanding of the plot and would have to continue it on our own time.
Possible Solutions:
By this point in the week, we were beginning to lose track of time and be reckless with how we spent it as we all were dealing with stressful mix of exams. I took on the task to complete the lyric sheet at home to ease my teammates burden so I had taken notes on our discussion home and simply expanded them to more fleshed out ideas.
To do List : Continue lyric sheet and propose the idea to my teammates to then move on to storyboard by the end of week 6
Week 6;
Recap: This week we had a full week to work on our project, which included recap our learning of technical elements and theories, song research and a class screen test directed by our teacher. This was planned to be completed within the same week so I moved on to polishing or adding to my other blogs (such as more research or a self-reflection. However, this task was not as swift as I wished it was as it took quite a while to research technical elements and go through each one of the blogs to complete their content and or reflection.
Possible Solutions:
Because of how much time this classwork is demanding, I had decided to set aside atleast an hour of my day to adding to the blog inorder to get it done by the submission date. I hope that this method will help in eliminating accumulated stress as my semestral examinations are also nearing
To do List : Complete all blogs that my teacher has assigned as it will be graded by the end of next week.
Week 7;
Recap: This is our final week to do our project for this term before we move on to the production phase. My group and I used our last class session to ask our teacher for feedback on the lyricsheet and plan. He suggested we tweak the storyline so it could have a more coherent and clear narrative that is more within our capabilities. Our group agreed to change it so we will be altering it before our filming begins. This poses as a slight problem however since we plan to begin filming on December thus we need to get this done as soon as possible
Possible Solutions:
I'll be finising the storyboard before my semester break begins by keeping my minimum an hour dedicated to completing unfinished task and adding towards the lyric sheet and storyboard.
To do List : Focus on semestral examinations first and foremost before moving on to ending the pre-production phase and move towards the actual production phase
Reflection: This is a checklist my teacher provided which helped me narrow down what I had finished and what is needed to be done. As of writing (13 Nov), most of my blogs are complete with only some that require a little more tweaking before being checked off. The checklist was very helpful as it kept me on track and I was able to hold notes in which I can come back to. Overall, the weekly progress is not a fun task to do each and every week however after revisiting it, I understand it is essential in keeping yourself accountable and responsible on following the schedule provided. I could have utilised it more to be the most effecient by providing more detail on my to-do list.
